Horror movies
have developed an unhealthy habit of creating bland characters in order to
lazily ensure that the audience doesn’t turn against the film when those
characters are brutally killed. What has resulted is a genre riddled with bad
acting and one-dimensional characters, and often we don’t complain because we
were entertained enough by the scares. The same doesn’t hold true of “Supernatural,”
a television horror show. Because we are forced to remain with the same main
characters each episode, it hurts that the weakest link in the show is their
development. As much as the show tries to quickly jam in motives and feelings
into script, the only time that the show feels truthful is when the scares begin.
While most shows develop more complex characters as the seasons go by,
“Supernatural” simply puts these characters through such an exorbitant amount
of melodrama that nothing feels grounded in reality.

The Twilight franchise was comprised of five films for four books,
because that is simply how desperate they were to bleed the fan base dry. At
least that franchise managed to find a way to cease the endlessly obnoxious
love triangle at the center of the narrative by the fourth film. “The Vampire
Diaries” is based on its own transparently familiar book series by L.J. Smith,
and the format of television allows for even more opportunities to drag out the
story than the Twilight franchise. The fifth season is now available on
Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, available for fans to see even more of the
back-and-forth teen vampire melodrama before season six airs on television.

Season four of
“The Vampire Diaries” utilized the characters known as the ‘original’ vampires
so much that they have spun off into their own narrative and television show
with season one of “The Originals.” This first season still interacts with the
timeline of “The Vampire Diaries” in season five, with supporting characters
able to bounce between the two shows as needed. Aside from the removal of a
majority of teenage melodrama from the narrative (except for the inevitable
romantic entanglements), “The Originals” shares a great deal with the show it
spawned from.

“Regular Show”
is one of those odd Cartoon Network series which walks the line between
entertainment for children and for adults, mostly due to the irreverence in the
show’s sense of humor. It is intentionally odd, with a type of logic that
adheres only to the mind of a child or pot-head, which seems to be the target
audience. This isn’t likely to be a universal hit, but the fans tend to be
loyally dedicated to the series. Having a release for a show with fans is a double-edged
sword, however, because they may be more likely to make a purchase but also
tend to have higher expectations.

While the
process for Ralph Steadman’s art is undeniably engaging, the focus of this
documentary is a bit too scattered to feel like a straightforward biopic.
Instead, much of the film almost seems more interested in making a movie about
deceased journalist and Steadman’s former Gonzo artistic collaborator, Hunter
S. Thompson. While it may have been arguable which of the two were more
politically driven or artistically inclined, Thompson is clearly the larger
personality of the two, and Steadman becomes slightly overshadowed by his
partner even in death.